In the Studio: Thu Kim Vũ creates paper sculptures and products through explorative play
Thu Kim Vũ’s studio is a small, hot-bright room sitting at the top of a building on Thụy Khuê, eye to eye with the treetops just outside the large windows that line two of the four walls. It seems an ideal place to ruminate on light passing through the delicate Washi paper with which Kim Vũ makes her paper sculptures, making the thin ink lines of her drawings jump out with fine-pointed lucidity. This is where she plays, she says, and where & Of Other Things sat down with her to talk about her creative process as a journey of exploration and discovery.
Interview by Nguyễn Hương Ly ● Photos by Nora Wehofsits
&: What draws you to working with paper?
Thu Kim Vũ: You know to be honest I started working with paper because it is such a friendly and cheap material to start with. I’m sure you’ll find the same answer from many artists. Imagine travelling and carrying a notebook, compared to carrying a piece of steel?
More than ten years ago, I also painted oil paintings, lacquer paintings, and silk paintings. However, when I finished school, I felt that the material I liked to work with most was paper.
&: When did you begin using Washi paper and what is special about it?
Thu Kim Vũ: I started using Washi paper in 2012, when I first came to Japan. Every country in the world has different traditional papermaking. Washi paper is from Japan, just like Dó and Điệp paper in Vietnam, or like Hanji paper in Korea. Washi paper is very fine and can turn into very high quality material to make many different products—people can make lights, draw on it, they can even make bridal dresses with it. That’s why I see Washi paper as having the great ability to be used in arts—it’s just so easy to use and make things.
&: Your work is really intricate and fragile, is that how you see the world?
Thu Kim Vũ: I am always inspired by the paper [itself], so right when I see a piece of paper, just how it is, how it looks, makes me think of how the artwork should be. I immediately think of an artwork that has clarity, which the light can penetrate, and has something fragile. The material gives me that feeling from the start, and suggests me to make things like that. It’s not my own intention.
I start drawing a detail, then see that on the side there should be another detail, so I painted it. Slowly they hatch out, and spread to any place they want. One develops after another.
&: Is there someone or something that consistently inspires you?
Thu Kim Vũ: Talking about the biggest influence on me and my work, it must be Japanese artists. Not only those who work on paper, but those who work with other materials as well. There is something I can’t explain about Japanese artwork. They look very subtle, meticulous and serene in the culture there. So I feel that and it appears in my work.
&: What would you say has changed in your process in the years you have worked as an artist and what has always stayed the same?
Thu Kim Vũ: It is very abstract to talk about process. I am always just playing with paper. I take one sheet of paper, bring it to the studio, experiment in different ways with it and ideas then come along.
Actually the light box project [at the Goethe Institute in March] started years ago. I went to Japan and had a chance to learn about Gampi paper, which is a type of Washi. This paper is incredibly thin, so beautiful and transparent. I was in love with it right away; drawings on it can be so sharp and threadlike. I drew on it and pasted on a sheet of mica and suddenly saw how beautiful it looked when the sunlight went through it. I then thought of putting a light bulb in there and creating a lamp that allows all the detailed drawings to be crystal clear. And that was when I decided to make a light box. One day I put two or three sheets of mica in front and realized that everything formed from separate layers, together turned into a 3D space, and the picture of the box of became three-dimensional.
So you see, I never thought of a light box from the first place. It simply started with paper, and then gradually in the process, there came an idea of putting mica in, and finally making a light box. One just happens after another.
My need to create art is just like the need to be entertained. Basically, I can talk about it as the need to feel balance in life.
&: Your maps on paper have so many details, do you plan them all beforehand or do they evolve as you are creating them?
Thu Kim Vũ: I just took a brush, dipped it into the ink and then painted. I do not think in advance how things should look. They come along naturally. I start drawing a detail, then see that on the side there should be another detail, so I painted it. Slowly they hatch out, and spread to any place they want. One develops after another.
However, I do make plans sometimes when I do exhibitions, depending on different spaces given.
&: What does creativity mean to you?
Thu Kim Vũ: I recently talked about this with a friend and she said something on this that I found very true. She said my need to create art is just like the need to be entertained. Basically, I can talk about it as the need to feel balance in life.
I imagine coming here every day, closing the door and sitting here, pulling out the paper and playing as a child, cutting here, tearing there, and creating something. For me, it’s like a natural demand to make things that are visually interesting and at the same time, a way to learn about the material and balance myself. It’s a space to explore, visually.
